3.7.11

Day off today and I spent most of it cleaning out the drawing/ computer room. When I say cleaning out the room, I really mean cleaning out all of my random piles of paper everywhere. The room pretty much looks the same as before I started... but with this much less paper . It's amazing how quickly paper piles up.I finally took the flash set I've been working on in to be printed this morning. I've been looking for a cheaper way to print it, but quickly found out what I already knew- cheap usually equals crap. So I went back to my regular printers and as always, they took care of me and will have it done by early next week.

As of today, I'm finally making my web store go "live." There are still a few things I'd love to do with it, like make a banner for the top. However, I have prints and shirts and they're not going to sell sitting in a box.

I'll explain a few things quickly and over the next few days dedicate a blog post to each one.

You'll probably notice the name of the shop- The Timber Tattoo Company. Here's the quick story- As a tattooist, technically I'm self employed, I'm a contract worker. Since I've moved back to Edmonton, I've just been using Free Range Studio as my company name for tax purposes. Free Range was the studio in Vancouver I owned for 3 years. That time has come and gone and one of my goals this year was to come up with a new company name. So, I've registered and will be using The Timber Tattoo Company from now on. Again... more on that later....

The first print I have up for sale is a piece of Tattoo Peter flash from when Teagan and I visited Amsterdam on our honeymoon in September. Again, the short story is that we both wanted to get tattooed, but there wasn't enough time. Teagan got tattooed and I sat in the front of the shop taking photos of the old flash. This was the tattoo I was going to get. I love the layout and it has a shark. Pretty awesome. The minute I found out I wouldn't be getting it tattooed, I knew I wanted to redraw it and make it into a print. Full story in the next few days....

The prints are $40 and are printed on Arches 285gsm Watercolor Paper. I consider these prints to be better than the original painting. Here's why-

The type of watercolor paint I use is amazingly vibrant, but unfortunately does not stay that way for very long. The paint fades extremely fast in any type of light. Unfortunately, I've contacted the company who makes the paint and was informed there is nothing that can be done to preserve the colour. No clear coat, UV resistant glass, film, etc, can do anything to stop the paint from disappearing when exposed to any type of light.

I feel extremely bad selling original paintings because I know they can not be displayed in anyway, or all the color will disappear extremely fast. That's why I have gone out of my way to have the original paintings scanned, colour corrected, and printed with the highest set of standards possible. The prints look exactly like the original painting, but will last a lifetime. That's why I consider them to be better than the original painting.

So stop by anytime, have a look around and buy something. Right now there's the print and a few of the left over National Parks Logo T-Shirts for sale. I'll be adding new prints, flash, shirts, etc to the shop on a regular basis. I've also updated my website, so there's a "shop" link now on the top menu bar.